We hope it's true that everyone does likes tacos!

May ended with an evening at the Ronald McDonald House Charities. One key service volunteers provide to the organization is cooking meals for the families and patients using the House. Most of the families at RMHC are visiting from out of town for difficult medical procedures or treatments for sometimes extended periods. RMHC has filled the niche of providing alternatives to vending machines and cafeterias with homemade meals prepared by friends.

Our group arrived around 4:30 and set out our meal. For our first time we chose a Mexican theme with tacos, burritos, Mexican rice, brownies and strawberry shortcake. Marlene and Stephanie brought food in ahead of time because they weren't able to be there Saturday, and Marlee (Return Serve's youngest volunteer so far!) really stepped up helping with the dinner, playing in the playroom with Mike, helping with the dishes, and pushing the button to make the electric train up by the ceiling go around and around! (Do you think this place was designed for kids, or something?)

We were told that the families typically just graze throughout the evening due to their unpredictable schedules, so we left the food out and only saw a few guests while we were there. We hope that they know how much we feel for them and their situations and that they had a little comfort in our tacos!

How many bags in two hours?

Thursday, May 21st the group headed to SnowCap Community Charities. We were led by one of our own, Carlene, who recently retired from the City of Gresham. She keeps herself busy with a variety of causes, but SnowCap is dear to her heart and we were happy to have Carlene give us a tour and show us the ropes. Half of our group spent the evening bagging up assorted food bags to be distributed to low income seniors who are homebound and unable to come to SnowCap to pick up their food. The pace of this activity was very quick with lots of lifting and reaching and grabbing - a workout for sure! They were able to pack an impressive amount of food in just two short hours. The rest of us were bagging up chicken pasta and ham and bean soup bags that come ready to make and include cooking instructions. We had this down in smooth assembly line fashion. And Mitchell was quickly a pro at the fancy vacuum sealer! One tip, before pouring bags and bags of beans in the pail for mixing, it pays to mix as you go so you don't have to dangle one person over the pail by his or her feet for mixing after the fact!

Thank you again to Carlene for sharing this caring space with us, and we look forward to more SnowCap work soon!

** One added bonus of Thursday's work - Chris joined us all the way from Boston earning himself the honorable title of "Furthest Traveled Return Serve Member". We think and hope we'll be seeing more of him while he's here in Portland for the summer. Thanks, Chris!